First steps

Welcome to my chess blog in which I will document my training and progress. Its intended audience is myself, but everyone is welcome.

So, what's up?

I'm a complete beginner, having only picked the game up after being inspired by the 2013 World Championship. I was familiar with the rules, but I hadn't even played a casual game since I was a kid. I tried playing a few blitz games to test the waters, with relatively disastrous results (as of today, 10 W / 15 L / 1 D, rating 770). I soon realized that the format wasn't suited for my current ability level and that I needed time to think.

I signed up with Chess Tempo and started training some tactics. After two weeks and 1105 problems solved I seem to be leveling off at a baseline level of skill of around 1250 to 1300 points:

I've also started playing correspondence chess (Online Chess as it's called here), which suits my ability level and glacial calculation tempo much better than blitz games. My current rating is 1292, but I suspect it's somewhat inflated as I've only finished four games, two of which I "won" by way of time out

So, where do I go from here?

Play more. I'm hoping to finish another game before the deadline for the 25th Chess.com Tournament so I can qualify (5 games minimum).

Keep solving tactics problems. A few a day keeps the losses away.

Analyze my games, both wins and losses. I'll be using this blog to publish my own analyses. Not because I think anyone but me has any interest in my amateur analysis, but because it forces me to be somewhat systematic about it. Writing stuff down makes the lessons more likely to stick.

Those are the main points, but I have a few more resources I will be delving into when time permits. Ward Farnsworth's much lauded (and free) Predator at the Chessboard will certainly be worked through to strengthen my tactics. I'm also considering buying a premium membership on this site to get access to the Chess Mentor feature, but for now I have plenty of free material to keep me busy.

Goals?

Who knows? I don't even know enough to set realistic long term goals at this point. For now I am content to steadily improve. Knowing myself though, I love my points and I'll probably start chasing them...